The Serb, we all agreed back in the halcyon days of the Two-Headed
King, didn't have what was needed to overcome Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal
to ascend to the number-one ranking. That 2008 Australian Open win was a fluke,
a one-off. A year later, he couldn't even go down fighting in defense of his lone
major title, retiring in the fourth set while trailing Andy Roddick in the
quarterfinals.

The real next great champion, the man who was eventually going
to replace Federer-Nadal on the throne, was a bigger, more powerful specimen: Juan
Martin del Potro. The 6'6" Argentinian had the strokes and the determination to
be king of the hill. He was a quiet, unassuming lad on and off court, but one
sensed that, like with Bjorn Borg, those still waters ran deep.

He proved it sooner than anyone expected. At the 2009 U.S.
Open, the then 20-year-old del Potro shellacked Nadal in the semifinals and
then came from two sets-to-one down to shock five-time defending champion
Federer in the final. It was his first Grand Slam final, coming just a month
after his first -- and losing -- Masters final.

But then a not-so-funny thing happened on the way to the
coronation. Del Potro hurt his wrist -- badly. By the time he had surgery and slogged
through rehabilitation, the 2010 season was gone and Djokovic had discovered a
whole new level, displacing Federer-Nadal for real.

View full sizeAPDoes Delpo have the extra gear that's needed to beat the Big Four players?

At this point last season, pundits were saying Delpo, having
won mid-range tourneys in Delray Beach and Estoril, was on the verge of
reclaiming his place at the top of the game. It didn't happen. He lost to Nadal
at Wimbledon. In Cincinnati he started what is now a five-match losing streak
to Federer. The grey-bearded Two-Headed King-in-exile won't even let del Potro get a
shot at the world number one.

Enthusiasm has since fallen off for the big man, who lost to Tomas Berdych in the Madrid semifinals last week and faces Jo-Willie Tsonga today in Rome. He's looked good all year, but just a little too one-note to contend for the biggest prizes. Del Potro
is number nine in the world, but the whispers have it that he'll never get
to number one, that he'll be lucky to ever reach a major final
again. Those flat groundstrokes are too old school, too Bill Tilden, to make it
in a world of copoly strings and Six Million Dollar Man-like defensive scrambling. Those still
waters suggest not Borg but Borg's too-happy-go-lucky claycourt rival, Manuel
Orantes.

When observers talk about dark horse candidates at Roland
Garros this year, the big men who get mentioned are John Isner and Milos
Raonic. Delpo, a 2009 French Open semifinalist, doesn't seem to be on anyone's list of potential champions. If he loses today to Tsonga in Rome, or later in the week to Nadal or Djokovic, his stock may fall even further.

This all must be frustrating to del Potro's fans,
but maybe they can take heart from an earlier Italian Open. When an overlooked big man named Andres Gomez lost to rising star Thomas Muster in the 1990 semifinals, he shrugged it off. "This is Rome, not Paris," Gomez said. "You don't show a guy everything you have in Rome. We may meet again."

The veteran Gomez, of course, would best Muster at Roland Garros a few weeks later and win the tournament, his only major singles title.

Maybe the bashful Juan Martin, like Gomez 22 years ago,
is right where he wants to be -- off the radar.